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Published: December 11th 2010
December 12, 2010
Wow. We just realized Yule is around the bend! This week has been not quite as full as the previous one, but I’ll try to find something to talk about. ☺
Monday we went out to the La Terrace to do some emailing and we managed to catch both Benji and Charlene on FB chat! We are usually on-line open if we are actually where there is net access, but we aren’t always able to do that- it was great to touch base a little with friends from home. We ran into one of the woman that B works with too- she is looking for an English tutor, in exchange for the same in French. I told her I’d be ok with doing that, so maybe by the time I get back home I’ll actually feel comfortable with my French again!
Tuesday we rode out to Revelation, one of the older communities out here in what they call the “Green Belt”- the reforestation zone. It is a rustic spread, with a few houses separated by tree stands along a main road. The head of Revelation, P, is a Frenchman, and very passionate about reforestation and organic farming. He speaks with an easy, immediate knowledge about the teachings of the Mother, sprinkling them into his incredible knowledge of the trees of the area. He knows this land like the back of his hand, and it shows. He also is doing farming, setting up a park, and has built a set of dykes to catch rainfall to replenish the very depleted water table.
Water is a strong subject here, as in the rest of India. When the Aurovillians first came to the area, we have been told, they had only to drill 20 meters to reach water. Now, it is over 50m, up to 150m in some places. P is certain that the aquifer can be replenished, and has been working on it strongly. He explained that there are two aquifers here, one, the pebbly strata near the surface (and exposed in places) he calls Auroville’s “open aquifer” because the eroded topsoil has exposed it, and a deeper one that is also depleted, and harder to replenish. Wow. I liked him right away, and I am now volunteering with his group- 2-3 times a week.
I am only doing part of the week with him, because I have also secured a volunteer place at Verité, a community that has an ornamental garden, organic food garden and small orchard. We visited this community on orientation, and fell in love with the clean, aesthetically pleasing set-up of the unit. This community is focused on guests coming to AV: teaching classes on Yoga, meditation, herbs and so on, plus housing for guests. It is very nice, and rather upscale. They have a solar array that used to provide all their power, but now only supplies part- due to increased demand and increased guest facilities. These two communities are perfect for this phase of my research as they are, respectively, a community with a Westerner with vast ecological knowledge who is teaching local villagers , and; a local gardener of twenty years who is teaching a Westerner about farming and gardening. Neat, huh?
Water came up later this week too, during a lunch at a restaurant called “Le Morgan”- it features a mermaid or siren in the artwork, maybe someone can tell me what it means? I haven’t been able to figure it out yet, and the managers (a French couple, with the best coffee we have found yet) are always busy running the place. Anyhow, we were hanging out with F, our ex-co-tenant, and we were joined by a couple young French women: one whom we knew from the orientation, and her friend. F seemed happy to talk, switching between French and English easily, about water- this is because he discovered our friend is volunteering at Aquadine, a water filtration and ‘bio-energetic enhancement’ facility. She is actually a biologist, so she isn’t sure what she will be doing for them, but she is happy to start in a month, spending the intervening time with the horses at one of the other units.
We all talked about flooding, water, and how the nearby villages sometimes don’t have access to clean water. We had toured Aquadine during our tour, and learned a bit about their relationship with the local area. Aquadine had set up a few stations of their filtered bio-dynamized water in some villages, but the process is expensive, and in the end they felt that the villagers were not really appreciative. There is a lot of sub-text there, that unfortunately we didn’t get into during the tour, and since I am certain there is a lot to that particular dynamic, I am ok with not judging, and hoping everything turns out ok for everyone.
The end of the week was for shopping. We went on Friday to Colors of Nature, a place our French friend had told us sold him some nice, but inexpensive clothing for men. Not anymore. Now they just do hand-dyed bolts of fabric for sale to tailors. We both enough fabric for two shirts and a pair of pants for me, then walked back to the GB. We now need to catch our hostess to set up a meeting with the tailor (who speaks almost no English).
We talked that night with our host, who told us some of the local history. There is apparently a problem in these poor villages with suicides- due to shame, poverty, problems with alcohol and jobs… I got to wondering if there is any statistical data on this, and if anyone is doing anything with it to help these people. That’s two study projects this week alone that I cannot do: water and poverty, and poverty and suicide- just in the nearby villages. Wow. It is amazing how the local area and AV are so very different, and separated by only a couple kilometers at most.
Another plus to our traveling around to find me volunteer places is that B got a bunch of photos for the AV website (part of her volunteer work). Some of these are on her Facebook. If you cannot find her, it is because she is somewhat cloaked. Go to my profile page, and there is a link to her under “married to.” She has been posting photos instead of words, which, according to the word-to-picture ration of 1/1000 puts here way ahead of me in keeping you guys informed.
The next day we went to Pondi to get in on some more shopping action. F had told us about this great place that had beautiful gifts for good prices. I’d write more, but, well… you can probably figure it out. I do need to say that our gift list is larger than our current bank account, so some of you will be getting stuff when we return, rather than through the post immediately.
That wraps up this week, so I will leave you with love and blessings from B & I here in beautiful (occasionally very wet) Auroville!
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Danielle
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I'm so excited to read your blogs ^.^ A lot of what you've mentioned so far are things that I've been learning about in class. It's exciting to see/know that I can read a firsthand experience and compare it to what we learn about in a classroom. I imagine there are many things you guys are learning about. It all sounds very exciting. :D I sort of want to see if they have a study abroad program for India now. It seems like the soil, water, and "green" things are all right up my alley in terms of my major etc. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are doing well! I look forward to reading about your next adventure(s) and Beryl's photos are amazing! Some look like National Geographic photos. ^.^ By the way speaking of water, be careful of some water wells. As they drill farther down sometimes they run into rocks which have naturally occuring arsenic in them, which gets released into the water to cause havoc. (according to my NRES class anyway) Stay safe. :)